About Me

I am a dedicated and ambitious aspiring freelance journalist, blogger, and writer. My main asset is my international background - I was born in Germany, then moved to France, and proceeded to grow up in China - and the cultural open-mindedness inherent to such a life story. I specialize in opinion pieces, but am also well-versed in travel/event reporting, and writing general news stories. I blog regularly on my two pages, and have contributed to multiple online publications, including Gonzo Today, a web page dedicated to Hunter S. Thompson's "gonzo" journalism and his legacy.
If you have any writing needs, I am the right person to talk to! I will be able to match the tone and style you desire, will work overtime to make you happy, and will deliver high quality content.
You can find me on Facebook and LinkedIn as "Mark Linnhoefer", and on Twitter as "@markalinnhoefer".
For work proposals please feel free to use the contact form on either of my blogs!

Sunday, August 17, 2014

but apparently I did not feel that they were enough yet, so I decided to add a bad gambling habit to them. I had actually planned to get into gambling since I started to report on the World Cup games a few months ago but have not had the financial liquidity necessary for it up until now. And well, I've already lost most of the money I had put down, but am now very enticed to put some more dough down and try to win back what has been lost so far. Which is a bad idea, trust me I know that it is, but so are alcohol, drugs, and borderline insanity, but those have always worked for me (not wanting to plagiarize Hunter S. Thompson here), meaning that gambling will probably work for me as well. Or not, and I'll never post here again because I'll lose all my assets and end up living on the streets. But up to that point, I will continue to gamble on a variety of sporting events I know nothing about. Which is in all likelihood not the best way to go, but quite exciting nevertheless. Or just because of that?I mean, I have not embraced risk and danger all too much in my life, or at least I thought that I didn't. But come to think of it, I might be a lot more prone to taking huge risks and putting myself in dangerous situations than I had originally thought. It's not a huge surprise though due to the fact that I have been close to dying both physically and mentally purely out of neglect for the possible consequences of my doing, meaning that I had taken as large a risk as I possibly could, and that it almost backfired on me. Which did not stop me from doing the same things over and over again though, each time with the same possibility of imminent death. Not that I take pride in having done so. But this behavior definitely shows that there is a risk-taking aspect to my personality that might be a lot stronger than I had gauged it to be so far. And if that's good or bad, I don't know. All I do know is that it seems to exist at times. There are other moments however; moments in which I do not take the slightest of risk and remain as stale as I imagine soups in prison to be. But those are usually passing rather quickly, and almost exclusively appear in situations that I did not get in of my own accord. So, am I a risk-taker by definition? Or am I just blind to risk in situations that would actually call for both eyes being wide open? Am I reckless or just stupid? I believe the line one has to cross to turn from the one to the other to be extremely thin, borderline anorexic actually. Recklessness can have its roots in stupidity, and stupid behavior can be induced by reckless thinking. The both are interdependent, and yet they stem from different worlds, hell, from different universes altogether. Which makes this whole thing a lot more complicated. Because even if the risks of an action underway are just too obvious for one to be oblivious about their existence, and one still decides to partake in said action, one is either a complete moron or a daredevil. Leaving us at the same impasse we were at two sentences ago. Hm. This is certainly a dilemma of large proportions. I mean, I could go the easy way and just state that all people exhibiting a daredevil attitude are in reality just idiots seemingly looking to accelerate their inescapable demise by acting foolishly. But that would just be what the government does; throwing people in a pot with others that may seem similar but are in reality equipped with a myriad of differences to separate them from each other. And I am not going to stoop to that level, pandering to the lowest common denominator found in society. No, I am much rather going to shed some light on this issue. The thing that separates those taking risks for a thrill and those taking risks out of stupid negligence is essentially that those taking the risk for a thrill are trying to accelerate towards the notorious edge I have already discussed at length in order to reach a state of understanding; they're taking these risks as means to an end, as stepping stones paving the way to recognition, to an epiphany of sorts. They're looking to reach a new mental platform of being, and can only do so by pushing the risks associated with their actions to an absolute maximum. Whereas those taking risks out of stupidity and/or negligence will quickly back down once they've seen the hazards accompanying their doing; they're not looking to "see the light" when the prospect becomes reality, they're not wanting to use the danger as a mean to reach an understanding and revelation-inducing end. No, they have simply overstepped their boundaries by accident, and are paralyzed with fear like they've been struck by lighting, just looking for a way back to their normal, peril-free, dull, and relentlessly stagnating way of life. Which is fine, really. No-one should be forced to partake in any possibly dangerous action, and nobody should be allowed to force others out of their insanely boring comfort zone. Then again, no human being should be taking drugs by the definition of most governments, and we all know damn well that that is just wrong, ludicrous, and has lost all touch with real life. So, to all of you daredevils: go and grab one of your dullest acquaintances and throw them in a situation they cannot possibly handle in order to get these boring fuckers to finally live their lives in a way that is worthy of being called that.

Ha. Those that know me personally will have snickered at the above sentence, simply because I am really not the type of guy to go out and do things that others would file under 'daredevil'. But I am living life to the fullest in another way, I am deliberately entering perilous situations in order to dash towards the illustrious edge, so, no, I would not consider myself as being dull, stagnating, fester, languish, or stall in any way. Maybe in the way that the sporting-fitness kind of people would consider as being idle. But I have at best slim interest for their definitions, seeing as my quest for an interesting and fulfilled life usually largely differs from theirs. This does not imply that I want to demean aforementioned group's definition though. It just means that mine is largely different, and that theirs cannot possibly apply to me just as much as mine cannot possibly apply to them. Which is not a bad thing by any means, it just shows the great diversity in the approaches different people have when it comes to the question of how to define yourself and your goals in life. It is pernicious to think your ideas and ideologies are right for everyone, and trying to insidiously push these on others is a heinous act of what essentially boils down to fascism. So, like I always say, "live and let live". That is as simple but at the same time as efficient as it gets. And I know that I have said that like a million times already, but it does not cease to be the best advice I could possibly give to anyone reading these words and pondering their meaning. I mean, there are obviously situations that call for an active involvement rather than passive disregard, and in those cases, such as the government trying to take your freedoms or some asshole trying to rob you, it is better not to stick to the electric principle of taking the path of least resistance, and rather go ahead and kick some ass and take some names. But generally speaking, as long as your freedom isn't at stake, it's much better to just let people go about their business and not interfere because you don't perceive it as being "right" or "morally/socially acceptable". So, the essence of this paragraph is essentially the anarchic principle of being able to take any and all freedoms for oneself as long as they do not obstruct the freedom of others, which, if people were smart enough to adhere to it, would make for a much better world than the war-ridden one we inhabit today.

All in all, I think that I'm touching on an all-too-familiar issue here once again: the idiocy of fellow man, and the disastrous consequences resulting from it. We humans are the only animal capable of actual thought, we're the only animal capable of judging its own actions, and yet we're completely unable to behave in a way that would honor such a high place in the world, unable to cope with the responsibility that arises from such great intellect, and completely unfit to rule over our own lives, much less over the faith of the entire fucking planet. And yet here we are, trying to do just that. And failing miserably, as always. Failure seems to be the only real constant in human history anyway. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to demean all the great achievements of mankind, we have come a long-ass way since the first ape decided it was time to walk on two legs instead of four and communicate using language instead of signs, but there has always been somewhat of a downward trend in all of our development, hasn't there? We had the industrialization, which was in itself good, but brought on inhumane treatment of workers, horrid environmental damages, and made some very fucking evil people very fucking rich. Then along came the globalization, which in itself had, and still has many positive aspects, but also created the means necessary for an even greater exploitation of the third world, a merging of standards only helpful to corporations, and an unprecedented opportunity for foreign secret services to spy on us. But well, globalization is of course not the sole responsible for these developments, and neither is the industrialization for that matter. It's us humans that cannot cope with great discoveries, it's us as a species that are unable to use these developments for the betterment of society and the environment. So, I reiterate: failure really is the only constant in human development so far. And that is sad, because there is such grand potential in all of mankind's achievements. But well, money and greed will always prevail, and we can therefore shove that potential up our asses, because we are not the ones that have the financial means necessary to make the corporate giants topple and finally use their might for good. "Good" - such a loosely defined term, but I think it is quite clear what I mean by it in this particular case.

Anyway. I am getting tired of this topic. It seems like no matter how many times I insist on it, no matter how many times I write about it, the same shit completely opposing my words just keeps on going down. So, I'll just hope that at least some of you manage to incorporate some of the things mentioned in this post in your own lives. Or at least think about some of the things and make up your own mind, you know the deal. So -- in this light -- I'll leave you be with some good music:

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California->Blah blah blah. You can rip on me all you want for posting a Red Hot Chili Peppers song on here, but fact of the matter is that this song is pretty damn cool and catchy, plus it somehow reminds me of a time not all too long ago when I did not think about things as much and everything was much simpler. And even if it didn't remind me of anything - this song is awesome, the guitar riff has an awesome ring to it, the vocals are really nicely put on there, alternating between spoken and sung, and all in all this is just a great classic tune, so... Enjoy!Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication-> I might be pushing my luck by putting yet another RHCP tune here, but since the topic is fitting, and I just heard this track on the radio, I decided to put it on here as well. And well, the title is the same as that of my favorite non-animated TV-show, so I guess it needed to appear here at some point anyway, so why not today? Plus the song in itself is quite nice, I really enjoy the melancholic guitar that starts with the intro and is present throughout the entire song, and the lyrics are quite cool as well, so... Enjoy!Dr. Dre feat. Ice Cube - Natural Born Killaz-> "You've got a problem? I've a got a problem solver, and his name is revolver" Awesome lyrics, legendary MCs, grimy-ass beat, and an overall great song! And well, pretty sick lyrics, but that's the way things went down back in the day I guess, and they're mostly an expression of rage anyway. Plus, Death Row used to be the most dangerous record label, so they had a certain reputation to uphold. And regardless of all that, this tune is fucking awesome and an absolute classic, so... Enjoy!Eminem - Mosh-> Here is an anti-Bush song, and as you can imagine, I thoroughly despise George W. Bush (and Dick Cheney for that matter), his politics, and everything he stands for, meaning that I immensely enjoy this tune. And well, Hunter S. Thompson, who was very well known for really hating Richard Nixon, said the following during an interview in 2004: "[...] if Nixon was running against George Bush. I’d vote for Nixon. Yeah... I never thought I’d say that." Which just goes to show how bad of a president George actually was. But anyway, this is a great political song that bashes Bush quite nicely, so... Enjoy!

Dimitri Vegas, Moguai & Like Mike - Mammoth (Original Mix)-> I know that this song has by now reached what one could consider a mainstream-status, but that does not diminish its quality in anyway. I first heard this great track in 2012 or 13 at a friend's place, and had somewhat of an eargasm when the awesome melodic part combined with the heavy bass hit my eardrums for the first time in my life. Needless to say, I've enjoyed this song ever since, and I think that it is one of the very best tunes modern EDM has to offer, so... Enjoy!

Flux Pavilion - The Scientist-> You know I love the UKF Dubstep Channel, you know that I love Flux Pavilion, and you know I love emphasizing my love for the both of them, so here goes another classic Flux Pavilion tune that I should have put on here long ago but for some reason failed to do so. Anyway, this song is just fucking awesome, great vocals, beautiful melody, and an outer-worldly drop that leaves your ears bleeding but your mind happy, so... Enjoy!Well. This post turned out to be of a little more than average length, sifting through a couple of topics, but remaining a lot more organized than the previous mess I decided to publish. From gambling to risk-taking to freedom to mankind's overall failure. A nice, logically adjacent chain of themes I think. Or at least hope. Anyway. I hope that you've enjoyed this post, and want to apologize for missing the "deadline" (the quotes are there because I have shifted said date from being every other day to every week to every ten days, meaning that there is no real regularity and therefore also no real deadline to adhere to) by a couple of days once again. The main reason for it this time is that I am enjoying my holidays at the North Sea and only have my cellphone's mobile network to rely on, which sucks. But well, I hope you're not all too disappointed and have enjoyed the above ramblings. Peace!

Thursday, August 7, 2014

has always surpassed my ambition by far, and I cannot shake the feeling that that is something not entirely uncommon in "talented" people. Which I don't really consider myself as being actually. But there are many voices (not in my head by the way...) that have told me that what I produce here and elsewhere in writing can be considered a "potential for great talent" of sorts, but I'm not really feeling up to meeting such grand expectations to be honest. Plus whenever I get praised I tend to get somewhat lazy and start dropping in quality. So I'll just stick to being humble and work within my normal frame of mind.

Anyway. This "great potential" thing has its roots back in school, where I was constantly told that I have such potential but am simply wasting it with my laziness and slacker-attitude. But well. I have come to terms with not fully using the alleged potential that people seem to think I have and rather stick to doing things the way I want. And so should everyone else. Those that even care that is. Most of you won't. Hell, I am not sure I do, so what's the point in all this? Well. The moments enticing you to subtly formulate sentences that might be of actual literary value and have a chance to live on long after your physical demise are those that seem the most mundane at first, so setting expectations for yourself way too high trying to meet some "potential" others tell you they see in you is bound to lead to failure. Or at least, if not even worse, to disappointment. So do not look at your favorite author or your mom's opinion to judge your work. Compared to a long-established author, your work will always seem inferior when you compare it yourself. Others will disagree, but that will make you so sure of your writing that you'll end up not even producing a coherent sentence. And your mom will always tell you what you've written is good. Others will disagree, and might be right to do so, but you'll be too blinded by the judgement of your mom or other relatives and therefore dismiss actually constructive feedback, leading once again to you producing bullshit. Now this is not only limited to writing of course, in any given situation where what you do is subject to the judgement of others the same rules apply. I am not saying that what others think of your work is not relevant mind you. I am just saying that you should not let what others think that you could do influence the things that you actually do. And as I write this I realize that I myself am subject to the very things described above, and that it is hard to actually set aside all praise and criticism ever received whilst typing. Which is not a bad thing per se, seeing as it helps me to avoid things that have been pointed out to me that I myself then saw needed changing. But it is a bad thing in the sense of me not questioning my every word as much anymore, seeing as that usually results in some typos and even erroneous use of words at times; but it is somewhat impossible to return to that state of healthy uncertainty simply because I keep receiving good feedback about my work. Which I enjoy of course. And I am not feeling any superior or anything like that either, but there is a certain emotion lingering somewhere in my subconsciousness compelling me to just type things without thinking of a theme or concept, and without re-reading my work to see if it makes sense. I just expect it to work, and somehow it usually does. Hell, every essay I've ever written in my entire life has been written that way, and I've had a decent grade for every single one of them. So, am I giving in to expectations set by others that believe in my potential by just expecting the things I write to be of quality and make sense? I don't know, maybe I am. But when I read my own entries weeks or even months after publishing them, I am usually quite contend with the result of my typing frenzies. And therefore I rely on this concept for as long as it yields the results I expect it to, namely entertaining blog posts for you guys. And well, articles, essays, my novel, essentially anything I type. Although I do do some research for news articles, so the concept does not apply entirely, but seeing as I still write them in a single sitting without laying out a structure beforehand, I guess it does apply to some extent.

But fuck all that. I am sitting here, watching "Meet The Spartans" - low-brow potty humor I know, but after a good 24 hours of being awake I am kind of enjoying it. My brain seems fried anyway, I am no longer thinking in circles but getting stuck in the corners of the squares my thinking is currently made up of. Thinking isn't smooth right now. It's an erratic, speed-frenzied jumping back and forth in the great void between my right and left ear. I may have overdone things a bit yesterday evening and night. I was just about to experience a circulatory breakdown due to the fact that I stupidly used my asthma-inhaler in my current condition. (By the way, I do not actually have asthma - I just fucked up my lungs by smoking cigarettes up to a degree which made my doctor tell me to at least take the goddamned spray so that I can make it to age 40. Or something like that, I was a bit fucked up when I last went there and my memories are a little hazy to be honest. The essence is that my lungs are bad and that I need to use an asthma-spray in order to alleviate the weight of the cancerous black tar pressing down on my mistreated, wheezing pulmonary alveoli.)My entire vision got blurry and was centered to a tunnel-like vortex before I finally managed to sit down and let my body rest for a while. I am now fairly confident that I can stand up with ease again actually. And I just did. Not with as much ease as I had expected, but in my current state of being that does not come as a surprise to me. So, in the marginal confines that my current condition allows I am rather well. Plus writing seems to be helping quite a bit. As long as I have my brain focused on creating coherent sentences that hold some meaning, I am not getting stuck in aforementioned corners and am therefore also not persisting on whatever imaginative paranoid monomania my deranged brain decides to come up with. Which is a good thing as you can imagine, simply because getting obsessed with some craze in my altered state of mind might turn ugly on me pretty quickly. So, I'll have to keep on writing, keep the flow going, don't get stuck on obtuse syntax or vocabulary questions, just keep it moving. I need movement, I need action, I have a need for speed so to say, and I am cranked up to an almost ugly maximum at the moment. Luckily it's not quite ugly yet and albeit some muscle spasms and temporary vertigo, I am still not feeling the tiniest bit of remorse or god forbid regret. I take responsibility for my own actions. Even if that means spending the entire day hunkered down in my room, cautiously avoiding people, and not feeling able to produce anything that makes sense anymore. Yet somehow still writing, which is somewhat contradictory I know, but writing is a kind of red line guiding my thoughts in a 'friendly' direction (for lack of a better word), so it seems like the primal parts of my brain are using the composition of words to keep the more sophisticated areas of my cerebrum from a long and dreadful pitfall leading to complete and utter exasperation when trying to think in meaningful terms. And as long as that's working, at least to some extent, I feel that I can hang on to this that I currently perceive as being my last straw already dangling at a silver thread. I have to admit that that sounds a bit melodramatic, but it actually sums up my feelings when it comes to this topic quite nicely.

Damn! I stared into the nothingness with an empty mind for about five minutes without even noticing just now. It literally feels like my brain has turned to mush. A grey, tasteless, emotionless mush, left with no abilities except to serve as ballast for my skull. Sounds sad, I know. But it'll pass. Tomorrow is another day, and it's going to be a lot less junkie-like than yesterday and today turned out to be. Well, not junkie-like per se. I am still writing this sitting on my retractable bed in the comfort of my medium-well cleaned apartment, with an abundance of psychoactive substances and clean tap water. Which is essentially all I need to survive today. And if I don't overdo the psychoactive chemicals like I did yesterday, I'll be able to catch a good night's sleep, and finally get caught up on the slumber time I've missed these past days. Or at least reach my all-time favorite state of being: the psychotic, deranging, maddening and tiring half-sleep madness that leaves one more exhausted and done for afterwards than one was prior to it. I wonder why my body insists on that kind of "rest" (mind the quotes, they're there for a reason...) instead of just saying Fuck It and using its last resources to stay awake until all fuel is used up, all body parts worn out, every last shred of sanity gone, finally collapsing on or near my bed and then staying asleep for about twelve hours. Just to wake up, enjoy my full cognitive powers for a while, and then start over. Not that that is a normal routine for me, but well, it's the holidays, and friends are coming to visit me, so events tend to transpire and lead from one to another, finally leaving me in the frame of mind thoroughly described in the previous paragraphs. And at some point this lifestyle is going to catch up to me, I realize that. But until then, I am not going to spend my time worrying about when I've reached the point of no return, or when I've gone over the edge. Because, as Hunter S. Thompson rightly said: "[T]he only people who really know where it [the edge] is are the ones who have gone over.". Which is just really fucking true. I mean I know with a fair amount of certainty that I have been close, like really fucking close to the notorious edge. But I cannot say where the edge would actually have been, and if I could I probably wouldn't be around anymore to write about it.

I think that in a certain way, we're all trying to make tiny steps towards the mystery that is the edge in order to test ourselves, to see how close we can get without going over. Which might be considered as being a stupid, and at times even a downright suicidal kind of behavior. But we all do it in our own way. Some use drugs, others sport, others fast cars or motorcycles, others violence, and yet other people use sexual perversions to get as close to where each individual perceives the edge to be. By the way, by "sexual perversions" I do mean pretty hardcore stuff, like S&M, bondage, that kind of shit. I do not however mean downright inhumane and intolerable perversions such as pedophiliaor necrophilia. As to bestiality, I suppose if that's what gets you going, then go for it; just make sure that no PETA-members are near you when you do, otherwise you'll be burned at the stake. Why that is, you ask? Well, the goat did not consent to either having put a filthy penis inside of it, or to having its poor penis stuck inside of your vagina/butt. At least that's the kind of reasoning PETA-people will subject your poor ears to. So be prepared for that, and bring ear-plugs. And ask them how to make sure that the animal consents; if they can give you an actual answer to that, they might have at least acquired some good writers or actually found some pseudo-smart ecology student willing to talk to the rest of the world on their behalf in a language that people understand instead of the usual PETA mumble-jumble. But I am almost entirely confident that that will not be the case. I am not here to rant on PETA though, at least not today. What I was saying before this tangent about bestiality and PETA appeared was that we're all wanting to "live life on the fast lane" and thereby approach the edge at rapidly increasing speeds, each and every one of us in their own personal way. In the minuscule confines of our own perception of 'extremes' we all strive to reach them, we all want to be outside of boundaries in some way. Even those most people would not consider as being anywhere close to any extremes are actually already approaching their own personal edge at their own, individual pace. Which might be hard to believe, even I find it to be so, but there is some more or less solid evidence that you can see in those you would consider as non-extreme or even downright lame in your lives: In their perception of the world, they're not taking the normal and unadventurous road, but rather the exciting one that is filled with danger; in "their world", they're approaching the illustrious edge rather quickly, even if it may seem like they haven't even found the proper cardinal direction to go in yet.

"Where is he going with this?", might be the question on your mind right now. Well, I am not entirely sure either. I've jumped from my supposedly great potential to my process to my current condition to the edge to bestiality and PETA, and finally got back to the topic of the edge. An expression for the boundary whose existence I've always been aware of that I found, as you might have guessed already, in a book written by Hunter S. Thompson. I mean I had of course heard people refer to the edge, and I had a vague clue that that might be the right word to use to describe the margin separating fun from folly, trip from psychosis, and essentially life from death, but only in Thompson's works was I able to acquire the proper depth required to understand his notion of the edge. And as soon as I had done so - understood what he meant by it - I realized that that is exactly the figurative place I had always somewhat known about but had never been sure what term I could use to label it with. "Cliff" would have been the best thing I could have come up with on the spot. And if I had actually spent much time pondering the issue I probably would have wound up using the word Edge whether I had known of HST or not. Because - as most things written by him do - the expression just fits that figurative point of no return like a boxing glove fits on the fists of Muhammad Ali. Thompson has found what I consider to be the perfect way to express his thoughts, which are quite similar to my own actually, and his writings always leave me longing for that kind of rugged perfection that never considered itself as having reached any kind of perfection yet. I want the kind of feeling elicited by being considered close to excellence by a broad audience just by doing what one enjoys doing without having to think about it a thousand times in terms of quality. I actually already have that "gift" (again, for lack of a better word) to some extent, as I had lain out earlier in this beast of a post, but not in the magnitude in which Hunter S. Thompson had it of course. Not even close, really. But well. I am still young and sure as hell do have quite a bit of ambition when it comes to developing my writing to the point mentioned above. I think I have de facto found my calling in life: Writing. I know I have approached that topic before, but it doesn't cease to amaze me: That my ramblings put into words fused into sentences might be of actual value to others. And that I might be able to get my foot in the door in the field of journalism, and of course that I have started writing a novel and will go on working on it so that I can release it in 2015 or 2016 or so. Perhaps earlier, perhaps later. But whatever I end up doing after my studies, it will definitely be something where writing will be my sole responsibility; I don't even want the big money in this aspect, I would just like to be able to write as much as I want to and/or can on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, and actually collect a paycheck, however tiny it may be, for doing so. That's all I really want out of life actually: To be able to sustain myself and my lifestyle just by writing. To have an actual cash payment in my hands proving the quality of my writing to me. Because nobody is going to pay anything for bad writing, at least that's the assumption I am operating under until proven otherwise. Let's just hope it works. I mean you don't have to, it's not like I have any faith in any of your projects succeeding; I don't even know what any of you guys' plans for the future consist of, and, as harsh as that might sound I am very sure that for the most of you, I don't even want to know. But that was just rude, wasn't it? If anyone felt insulted by this, I am actually inclined to apologize this one time, because I have just been really unfair: I mean you're the people making this all worthwhile, without you my blog would be a ghost-town with only a single spirit floating around booing at itself. A sad sight. But my snide comment above was just a conclusion drawn from statistics. My readership is very roughly composed to fifty percent of Americans and to another fifty percent of Germans. Which it is quite definitely not in reality; but for the sake of this argument, it is. Anyway. We have one in four Americans suffering from insanity, and seeing as I don't trust things "Made in the US", let's make that two in four Americans suffering from a mental illness of sorts. On the other side of the big pool we have the Germans with one out of three people suffering from a psychic problem. That figure seems a tad too low too, so let's say every one and a half persons out of three suffer from a mental problem of sorts. I have about 40 regular readers, 20 US, 20 German. Let's do some math for the first and last time on here: 2/4 = 0.5 * 20 = 10; so ten of the twenty American readers are bat-shit crazy or at least close to it. And seeing as I have adjusted the numbers for Germany a bit, it boils down to the same: 1.5/3 = 0.5 * 20 = 10. Meaning that ten of my twenty German readers are insane as well. So with twenty out of forty people reading this theoretically needing to be locked away in an asylum for the mentally-ill, how can I show any serious interest in your future projects? I mean, put yourself in my position, and then think if you would have said anything even remotely similar to what I just said. I think you would be lying to yourself if you said no altogether; you may of course disagree with me on the things I am saying or even show me that the statistics I found are completely bogus, but you'd still have to admit that you would have acted similarly on a different level so to speak, had you been in my position. Wow. I am not even sure if there is any sense in the above paragraph. I hope so, because if I discover that there isn't any meaning whatsoever in these deranged ramblings from a brain gone rogue on speed and sleep-deprivation, I'll have to rewrite quite a lot of words, and then this post will be delayed even further, so I really hope that these words I am typing right now will be able to stay where they are and not be subject to eradication on the morning that is bound to follow; 'bound to follow' because that's the way life goes, you can call it Karma, Ying&Yang, or just refer to Cypress Hill's "What Goes Around Comes Around", which is essentially the concept of Karma put in Rap. Anyhow. There will always be a morning following a night, just like good will be done onto you if you hath done good onto others. Trust me, I am not trying to get all preachy on you here, but these concepts hold such a fundamental truth that I feel the need to urge each and every one of you reading this to try and implement it in your own lives. It's really as easily done as it is said for once. You just have to behave like a decent human being, and that's the way most others will behave towards you. I mean, there are always going to be a few assholes wherever you go but you should not make their behavior affect yours negatively, and rather have it do the opposite: Continue being polite to everyone, be even more so than usually, and think of aforementioned assholes when you want to do something that you know to be wrong/immoral/bad to do, and then remind yourself that you have no reason whatsoever to stoop to their level. Their level being the kind of cheap stupid thrill people seem to get out of violence and asshole-behavior nowadays; even more so than the ancient Romans used to actually. A level that most of the country, hell, the entire fucking world has been devolving towards. Which is unfortunate, really. So many potential readers lost in the works of a system that will grind them down to small conforming shells of their former personalities without any form of individual identity. And are then left with a feeling of great emptiness inside their chests whenever the TV-set is turned off and the world stops giving a shit about the things these parasitic clones brainwashed by oppressive governments wanting to do what the fuck they want without having to ask a congress or god forbid the citizens are actually made of, which basically amounts to nothing at all: Assholes looking for weaker assholes that they can get in a cocky arguments with that ultimately lead to fist-fights that are of no use to anyone but these guys' egos. And even these egos have no real use for the feeling of superiority achieved by winning a fight anymore, seeing as they have long ago been caved out by parental abuse and inferiority complexes. Either of the two actually, not necessarily both, and possibly something different altogether. All options are quite hard, but we all know that that's the way shit goes down in the real world: You work hard, you study hard, you take on usually unpaid internships, you learn about "real work" in a "real office", and finally you'll wind up being the doormat of some corporate plug that was born with a gold-plated diamond spoon in his filthy rich and spoiled mouth. And if you dare complaining about his utter lack of social skills and decent behavior, that will be the longest you have worked for that company. They [the corporations] don't like people that cause trouble, they don't want actual thinkers. Not even in the highest management levels anymore. The companies pay some experts to take care of all the things that managers used to take care of. And then the managers themselves are left with a few coordinating tasks that do not require any thought whatsoever: The retarded love-child of a donkey with down syndrome and an ape having literally shit instead of brains could do the jobs I have seen managers being appointed for these days. Which just proves my point: Most corporations are not looking for anyone that has the ability to think on their feet and/or be creative anymore, but rather for a clone, a robotic parody of a human being only designed to take and complete orders. Of course there are managers still in need of doing their job and being creative whilst doing so, but their numbers are rapidly receding. This indicates quite clearly that the cold business world that was never really my favorite place on the industrial checkerboard that is the economy has now completely ruined my faith in anything related to companies and corporations, meaning that I will definitely have to get some job in which I can really just stick to writing; I need the kind of job I had already indicated my affinity for earlier. I mean, I actually need it! I cannot go on for three years studying business if I can't live out my passion for writing in the meantime.

Hah. I should probably have gone to writing/journalism/creative classes instead of opting for the safe choice of studying business first to have some sort of base that I can build my future career, in whatever field that may be on. But well, usually the safe bet is the best bet, so it might turn out as an advantage for me being safely enrolled in something that will lead to me having a diploma which is internationally recognized and enables me to find a decently paying job to make ends meet. At least that's the plan. I hope to seriously get into either my novel or journalism before that point in time arrives though, seeing as I'd already have an occupation then that could get me some sort of paycheck and that has the additional bonus of not revolving around me sitting at a fancy desk wearing a tight-ass suit that does not even leave enough room for the boys to hang, if you catch my drift. I just fucking hate dressing like a goddamned penguin with the sole purpose of looking socially acceptable to people I have nothing in common with whatsoever. What's the problem with a slightly sagged pair of jeans, a t- or khaki-shirt, and a good old pair of sneakers from Nike, AND1 or similar brands. Not Adidas though, I have for some inexplicable reason always disliked Adidas clothing, especially when compared to its Nike counter-parts. The cause for my disliking of Adidas is probably my predilection for Nike products that has been prevalent in me for almost a decade now without any reasons based on any logic whatsoever. The Nike-swoosh is just way cooler than the Adidas-stripes can ever hope to be. But that's just my opinion and completely irrelevant, as I feel pretty much everything I am going to type from hereon will be.So I am putting a stop to this now gargantuan beast of a post that somehow turned out to be of almost 4600 words in length now already. I don't know how that happened to be honest. I sat down looking at about 700 words. What ensued then is what I remember as a myriad of scenes just flashing in front of my intensely exhausted eyes from the dreaded hours past; and after that I was staring at about 4200 words of text. I have no idea in hell how my exasperated and by now thoroughly used up body still awake from last night managed to actually compose such a long entry without having it turn to complete gibberish or completely detaching itself from a golden thread that might actually not even be existent here. But if it is, I have definitely not detached the rest of the text entirely from it albeit of course straying from the general path laid out by said thread a little bit every now and then. But well, given my still quite heavily altered state of mind I think that this might actually make for an interesting read, or maybe at least show you how morbidly weird thought patterns can get with a long enough lack of sleep and a large enough concentration of chemical stimulants in the blood-stream. It can be quite confusing to those having never partaken in any form of use of an "illegal" substance (I do not think that anyone has the right to label a substance that will only harm those who willingly take it as illegal, hence the quotes around that filthy word), but I trust that it offered you a direct albeit possibly bewildering insight into the frame of mind of someone under the influence of an essentially dirty and for some reason also magnetic stimulant (yep, you cannot use a credit card to dry and align Speed - it will fuck up the card's magnetic stripe and make it completely unusable).

Anyway. I have already said before that no more good will come out of my continuous typing, and yet I went on to write a whole new paragraph filled with semi-usable info about the creation of this post and Speed. Well, I hope you have been entertained, shocked, insulted, excited, angered, amused, bewildered, or simply informed, or all, or none of the here-mentioned by this truly gigantic post. Whichever emotion it was, I am just glad to elicit any kind of feeling in audiences, seeing as that proves that I have reached these people in some way, to some extent. In this light, I'll leave you be, and as always, share some great music with you:

James Brown - It's a man's world-> Ah. James Brown. Great musician with a grand voice from somewhere out of space. And well, this is one of his most famous songs, but that's not the reason for its appearance here. Not even the message is the actual reason for it either. No, this song is here because I just watched "Smoking Aces 2" and it is featured in a scene there. And that somehow elicited a goose-bumpy feeling in my groin, which made me borderline anxious to put it up here. But regardless of the reason, this song is just fucking awesome, so... Enjoy!

Warren Zevon - Wanted Dead Or Alive-> Well, I've just recently discovered Warren Zevon and his music, but I have to say that I fiercely enjoy it and will therefore be posting a couple of his songs on here every now and then. And well, I really like "Californication"; I idolize Hunter S. Thompson; and I have always been fond of guitar-based music anyway, meaning that this song really speaks to me on a number of levels and therefore needed featuring on here, so... Enjoy!

Warren Zevon - Mr. Bad Example-> As I just said, I've grown to really enjoy this guy's music, and this song is just too grand for words... A self-designated asshole spouting filthy words to live by if being infamous is what you thrive for. And well, all in all this is just a great piece of classic American music, so... Enjoy!

Pegboard Nerds - Frainbreeze-> Well here we go again, the second time Pegboard Nerds are on here, and, hell, they deserve to be! Nice atmospheric intro that already hints at the ensuing awesomeness and is rounded up by a great drop that remains in a melodic, glitch-y kind of realm which I really enjoy! All in all a great song with some nice rhythm and melody combined using heavy drops infused into a three and a half minute long piece of greatness that is just, well, great, so... Enjoy!

Spag Heddy - Still Raggamuffin (feat. dESH)-> OH HELL FUCKING YES!! This is so fucking awesome I once again lack the words to describe it properly! I've featured Spag Heddy on here before I am sure, but I have not ever heard any genre-crossing by them yet, and I have to say that I am very impressed. To say the least actually. This is so fucking grand, I can't even begin to stop being insanely enthusiastic about it! Amazing vocals, crazy-ass drops, and an overall timeless piece of incredible music, so... Enjoy!

Nature One Inc - The Golden Twenty (Jerome's Official Anthem Mix)-> I WAS THERE! IT WAS SO FUCKING AWESOME! I do not have the words to describe how amazing it was to be there! I already attended last year, but this time we had planned everything out much better and were not as ill-prepared as we had been the year before, so it was even more enthralling than it was back then! And well, this is not the anthem I was looking for, but it's still up to par and manages to reflect the goose-bump-inducing awesomeness that is Nature One quite well, so... Enjoy!

Wu-Tang Clan - Gravel Pit-> Such a great classic track, how could I have forgotten about posting it on here until now? I don't know. What I do know though is that this song is fucking awesome, the video is funny as hell, and well I love Wu-Tang anyway, so... Enjoy!

Snoop Dogg - Ain't No Fun (feat. Nate Dogg, Warren G, Kurupt)-> Tha Dogg Pound has always been making superior funk-influenced gangster rap, and this song is by no means an exception. Some of the best MCs of the time getting together on a funky-ass beat on one of the great classic rap albums of all time to create a great track that delivers the very essence of pimp prevalent in west-coast rap back in the day. Can't believe I hadn't put this up here before, it's one of my favorite songs ever come to think of it, so... Enjoy!

Busta Rhymes - Break Ya Neck-> Another one of these songs that I cannot believe haven't been put up on here yet. I mean, this is like THE classic Busta Rhymes track. And I have neglected it until today. That is sad actually. But anyway, this tune is so fucking awesome and raw; Busta is one of the ill-est MCs out there, and his former style which is still prevalent in this piece of musical genius was so grand, he really brought rap to another level, so... Enjoy!

Well, it took an eternity for this post to appear on the internet once again, and I have to apologize for this. I typed it in the middle of a speed-frenzied night and could not for the life of me remember half of what I wrote the next morning, so I wanted to re-read the whole thing before posting it. And I still had to add music to it as well, plus the entire process was halted by the Nature One festival for a couple of days, meaning that I was unable to finish it off until today. But it's done now. I am unsure about its quality and the depth of its content, but I think it is as always adequate. At least I hope that it is.I just hope that this entry is enjoyable to you in spite of the many erratic and jumpy lines of thought barely having any actual logical adjacency present throughout the entire thing. Peace!